Dear inv estors, analysts, and friends from the press, welcome to Ping An Bank 2024 Annual Results Announcement. I am the Board Secretary, Zhou Qiang. Today's annual results announcement, similarly, in addition to our on-site event, we have also arranged conference call, and also we have the video live streaming on a pocket app, and also provide a simultaneous translation service for overseas investors. At the same time, in order to avoid possible impact on the stock price, we have adjusted the results announcement to 3:00 P.M. Thank you for your continued support and attention. The year 2024, the environment continues to change. The scale growth is slowing down. The net interest margin is under a lot of pressure. If you consider the banking sector as a stock, then it's fair to say that 2024 is the turning point from scale expansion to quality development.
The changes of the operating environment have put us under the test of our operating logic. For our bank, two years ago, we have established our strategy to turn from passive actions to proactive actions. In the past year, 2024, we have taken active actions in reform, from quantitative change to qualitative change. In looking forward to the next five years, and also based on the two sessions that have just set a tone for the general trend of the banking sector, our bank has also clarified the development pathways for the whole year. Today's results announcement is a summary of our past year operational results, while at the same time, to exchange with you, to introduce our management, President of Ping An Bank, Mr. Ji Guangheng, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Xiang Youzhi, Vice President, Mr.
Yang Zhiqun, Assistant to the President and Chief Risk Officer, Mr. Wu Leiming, and continuously strengthen the foundation for long-term growth. Today, I will primarily report on the following aspects. First, Ping An Bank's performance in 2024. Second, the progress of our initiatives in 2024. Thirdly, our strategic direction for the future. Firstly, performance in 2024. In 2024, Ping An Bank accelerated the business restructuring while maintaining overall stable operations. First, we strengthened, refined management and improved operational efficiency. We achieved operating income of RMB 146.6 billion, down 10.9% year- on- year. Net profit, RMB 44.8 billion. Second, total assets steadily increased. For corporate banking, we strengthened the quality and efficiency of services to the real economy. We proactively optimized the business structure. Total assets increased by 3.3%. Corporate loan balance increased by 12.4%. Personal loans have decreased by close to 11% due to proactive reduction of high-risk businesses.
The proportion of mortgage-based loans increased by 4%, reaching 62.8%. Thirdly, we continue to strengthen the risk of barriers, maintaining strong risk coverage capabilities. NPL was 1.06%. Provision coverage ratio, 251%. Fourthly, we enhanced our internal capital generation capability. In recent two years, despite an overall increase in the dividend payout ratio, our capital adequacy ratio remained above average. Business operations, we've taken the implementation of the central committee's major policies and strategic deployment as our primary guideline for our strategy, leveraging the party committee's role in decision-making on major issues from political, ideological, organizational, team building, party integrity, and party business integration perspectives. We have integrated party building work with corporate governance and business management. Second, we have a solid implementation of the financial five major initiatives or the five articles to continuously strengthen services to the real economy.
We firmly grasp the political nature and people-oriented nature of the financial work, thoroughly researching, meticulously planning, and fully advancing initiatives in technology, in fintech, green finance, inclusive finance, pension finance, and digital finance. We have taken the opportunity to implement the party and state's major policy decisions for a new round of high-quality development. Second, deepening the key strategic reform project so as to strengthen the foundation for high-quality development. The overall progress has met expectations in 2024. The bank adheres to our strategic direction of strengthening retail banking and refining corporate banking and interbanking business, continuously deepening transformation through reinforcing. Loans steadily, cost control showed significant results. Asset quality remained stable. Interest expense ratio continued to optimize, and our provision coverage ratio maintained a leading position among national joint stock banks. The reform progress has been in line with expectations. For retail banking, we'll continue to.
Qiang of Shenzhen branch is proposed to be transferred to the head office to oversee retail business, leveraging his dynamic and energetic capabilities. For Mr. Zhang Zhaohui, Assistant to President, he will concurrently serve as the General Manager of Shenzhen branch. The Shenzhen branch is Ping An Bank's largest foundation and a key branch for implementing the retail reform strategy. Mr. Zhang's rich experience will play a better role as a veteran to guide the operation of the branch so as to elevate the retail reform to a next level. Corporate and interbanking business, they are developed to complement retail banking. We strengthen the quality and effectiveness of our services to the real economy, effectively implementing urban real estate financing coordination and supporting the resolution of a local platform debt risk. Second, we develop specialized market-making and sales services to meet customers' diverse financial service needs.
We have also implemented the 10 matters or the 10 initiatives of operational management to safeguard business development. Ping An Bank continues to implement financial support. Second, we would also advance strategic transformation deeper. Our bank will actively respond to internal and external challenges, maintaining an unwavering commitment to our retail banking strategy and also to balance short-term and long-term considerations as well as returns and risks. At the same time, we will continue to actively explore the application of various technologies, including AI, consolidating our bank's technological advantages, accelerate a scenario-based implementation of AI plus finance, improving user experience.
We will also continue to adjust the retail business structure. We will focus on upgrading strategic elements such as team building, product customer management, and risk control of the increase in the proportion of the high-quality business. First of all, we will extend our distinguished proprietary customer acquisition channel, maintain strategic focus. Secondly, we will strengthen our tiered customer management capacity to develop competitive products to meet the needs of the target consumers. Thirdly, we will deepen customer relationship management, upgrade our marketing management system. Fourthly, we will advance wealth management reform, enhance comprehensive capacities in our team, especially serving the wealth management, payroll service, and payment settlement to increase the current deposit retention and optimize interest expense ratios. We will also continue to iterate and upgrade our corporate banking strategy. We will increase credit asset deployment, increase our tiered cost volume, and optimize our asset portfolio.
Secondly, we will drive the high-quality growth in corporate deposit by optimizing structure, reducing cost, and maintaining scale. Thirdly, we will improve customer gradients, cultivation, and transfer mechanism. Fourthly, our treasury and interbanking business will continue to upgrade the three major capacities for investment, trade, and sales, diversify investment strategy, and enhance operational contribution. Thirdly, we leverage risk management as its leading role in strengthening risk control. We upgrade end-to-end management system for retail credit, improve risk pricing, promote centralized approval process, establish a multidimensional monitoring system. Secondly, we will continue to maintain prudent risk habitat, implement forward-looking early warning management, strengthening risk control measures, optimize asset structure, reduce the MPR formation ratio. Thirdly, we will upgrade our collection and deposit strategy, utilize multiple approaches to revitalize non-performing assets and release efficiency.
Fourthly, we will focus on the risk in key areas, fully cooperate in risk mitigation efforts, mitigate the possible risk to stable the financial market operation. Fifthly, promote development through talent, strengthening our core value. We will further improve our sales mechanism, including talent selection, capacity development, performance assessment, incentives, and we will aim to build a consensus in proactive advancement in selecting the right team to work with, continue to provide a solid foundation for our continued reform and high-quality sustainable development. Throughout our history, Ping An Bank has highly valued the shareholder interest. To express our gratitude to the investors, our companies responded to the national policy and took the lead among the joint stock banks in completing interim demands. Based upon our performance in 2024, we have maintained a reasonable dividend level for the full year. We are also formulating and announcing a valuation enhancement plan.
Looking into the future, my team and I will maintain a sense of the urgency and confidently engage in the work ahead of us, striving to improve our operational finance, create greater value to our customers, shareholders, societies, and employees. Thank you very much.
The presentation has already presented what has been achieved in the past and also helping us to truly understand the challenges we are facing now, but also lay a solid foundation for the future development. We need to maintain strategic patience, strengthen the implementation of the strategy, focusing on the effectiveness and efficiency. That would be the key priority for Ping An Bank. All the work's been in good progress. We are also going to continue and strengthen our cooperation with all parties of the market, continue to deliver our performance to all of you. Please stay tuned on Ping An Bank's sustainable development.
Ladies and gentlemen, coming next, we're going to welcome the Vice President and the Chief Financial Officer of Ping An Bank, Mr. Xiang Youzhi, to be on the stage to walk us through the 2024 annual result. Please.
Dear investors, dear analysts, and friends from the media, good afternoon. Last Friday, we have already released our 2024 annual result announcement. You probably read part of our report. Please allow me to walk you through this report. I will also surely leave some time for future discussion. In 2024, the key operationals of Ping An, including the following parts. First of all, our asset size continued to go up, but I also proactively adjusted our structure, especially you see the bilateral retail deposit increased by 3.7% compared with the beginning of this year. Interbank liability has been declined. All the key indicators have been further improved.
The five articles or we see the five major initiatives being a key for our operations last year. We have made progress in fintech, in the green finance, inclusive finance, pension finance, and tech finance. Especially, we continue to improve our organization largely. Increased by 10.9% on a worldwide basis, but we made big progress for cost initiatives. The lean management of the expenses helped us to further reduce the cost by 11.7%. While at the same time, we continue to clear the high-risk assets. Last year, the risk proportions further reduced by 16.4%. Considering all those factors, even if the revenue down by 10.9%, our net profit still maintained at RMB 44.5 billion, down by. Our provision coverage ratios being very stable for the full year. Generally speaking, the provision coverage actually can help to showcase we have a very strong risk-resistant capacity.
Fifthly, for Ping An Bank, we continue to practice the lean management over capitals, and we also keep a balance on the return to the investors and the capital needs. By the end of 2024, our core tier one. In 2023, it was a RMB 30.2 billion increase. That's the reason our core capital adequacy rate has been reduced by 0.1%. In other words, we balanced our performance regarding the return to the shareholders and the capital performance. To be more specific, for the retail business, in 2024, we were being proactively adjusting our business, especially the business assets. On the asset side, we improved the quality of the new loans. Last year, we do see the home mortgage continue to be optimized and also further downsize the high-risk credit loans. This is a result from our proactive measure.
While at the same time, for the retail deposit, it also maintained a very stable growth, especially the payroll and the wholesale service being of high quality, grow by 80.8%, and the average loans increased by 10.1%, and the deposit interest paying rate has been down by 15 basis points. For AUM, altogether, you see that especially for the wealth clients or the private banking clients, we do see the wealth management AUM continue to go up. The fees for the wealth management due to the market reason continue to decline, but still, we do have some good performance on the agency of the personal finance and retail finance. For retail business, we continue to iterate our digital platform along with the integrated financial solution on the marketing channel, digital operation, and digital service. Integrated finance is still the key initiative within our mind.
For the corporate business, we continue to serve the efficiency of the real economy. While in the year of 2024, the balance of the corporate loans grew by 12.4%, a significant increase in the past few years, and the balance of the corporate deposit maintained a very stable growth. At the same time, interest payment rate has been improved by 12 basis points for the whole year. We continue to refine the customer and the product and the business to improve our business transformation and upgrading regarding the key industries. We focus on the four major tech industries and the three emerging industries, and you can see the newly issued loans continue to be given to the key elders and key industries. Last year, our corporate client number reached 850,000 last year, increased by 30% on a worldwide basis.
We have more newly gained clients from the strategic and the technology industry. Regarding the product, we continue to leverage our advantage on the digital product for the syndicated loans and the cross-border finance. Those business volume was growing very significantly in 2024. While for the interbanking business and with our client business and investment trading business, last year, the total investment trading market-making volume asset custodies as well as the corporate hedging improved. No matter for the corporate MPR formation or the retail MPR formation, it was growing significantly improvedly. We also continue to strengthen our efforts for the collection. While property market risk has been a key concern to the market for the past few years, according to the disclosures being made every quarter, you can see the MPR for the property market continued to maintain a stable performance, including the on-and-off balance sheet performance.
They are all performing with very stable indicators. You can take a look at the metrics in our annual report for yourself. I have already shared with you the overall performance of Ping An Bank in 2024. Coming next, let me also share with you what we're going to do in 2025. First of all, we'd like to support real economy improvement. We're going to leverage retail business to seek for the high-quality growth. For corporate business, we continue to refine industry, refine customer, and refine product as key major strategies. More importantly, we need to continue to well improve our performance on the five major initiatives or the five articles. We continue to improve our investment rating and the client business. We're also going to advance the digital financing initiative. Recently, you also see some technical breakthroughs such as DeepSeek.
We keep an eye on those advanced technology and continue to advance our digital finance with ever-increasing and evolving technical landscape. That's all for my presentation. Thank you. Let's now welcome the management team to be on the stage and be well seated for the Q&A session, please.
Thank you. Thanks for Mr. Xiang. Your presentation has already showcased us the key metrics and indicators in our annual report. You also help us to share the logic behind the data and also respond to some of the concerns of the market. You mentioned some elaboration and descriptions on the key measures and initiatives we're going to have. Ladies and gentlemen, and dear investors, the previous two presentations laid a very solid foundation for our Q&A. Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, now let's welcome our management team to be seated on the stage and ready for the Q&A.
Okay, let us proceed. Many of our guests have traveled from out of town specifically to attend our meeting, so I believe that their questions will be highly representative. Therefore, today's Q&A session will focus on the interaction with our on-site guests. To allow more guests to participate, we request that each guest ask only one question that is of most concern to you, leaving opportunities for others to speak as well. Please state. I'll have the analyst raise the question first, and second, a question from the press. Thank you for your cooperation. Now, we'll start the Q&A. Please raise your hand if you want to raise a question, and please don't forget to state your company and your name before asking the question. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Zhou, for the opportunity to raise the question first. I'm from Citi Securities, I'm Mark Wenpeng. I have a question regarding retail banking. Ping An has been quite strong in retail banking. We have seen in the financial statement to adhere to this retail banking strategy, and also there are some new requirements for high-quality retail banking, and also there are a lot of efforts being made to do it. My question to Mr. Ji is about under Ping An Bank's overall business layout and development strategy. How will this adjustment affect the positioning and strategy of the retail business? We have noticed that there have been some changes in the leadership for retail banking. Can you also share with us how should we understand this move, and how will that affect the retail banking business?
This is indeed a good question. When we had private discussions, you also said something that such a model is not sustainable. If we only focus on the L side, that's not adequate. Also, the A side business is not good enough. For regulation, for the regulators, there might be some concerns about the risk, about the risk mitigation capabilities when the economy starts the downturn cycle. In the past 18-20 months of leadership change, basically with the help from our external consultancies, we have streamlined our strategy, in particular our retail strategy. We have also come up with measures to address the common concerns. In the past year, we had a very tight schedule and were working hard to make the adjustment. As you can see, for our retail team, the risk management capabilities have been further consolidated. We have shifted from a data-driven management to a centralized or unified management. As you can see, the threshold of risk is being raised.
That is to say, we have basically adjusted the high-interest margin and high-risk product. It is being moved downward. Of course, these channel reforms are quite painstaking. For many issues that emerge today, apologies. Please raise your hand if you can't hear me correctly. For many issues that are doing, we should retain our strategic composure to prioritize the retail business and also adjust the risk factors and also to make adjustments for the channels. Now, for our reliance or dependency on the external channels, it is trending down. Additionally, for our products, with the exception of high-risk, high-pricing products, we have a limited number of products out there. You are also concerned about this direction. There is a high speed of growth. If it continues, then when it encounters economic cycles, it will become problematic. After the past year, I think we have streamlined our strategy.
We have also achieved consensus of our operational strategy, and also we are driving it forward. That being said, in this process, we are facing a very challenging external environment. For retail banking, the first step has been completed. We have stopped the bleeding, but it will take time to scale down. We were facing a lot of pressures because it will drive down our revenue, and also the risk might go up. The non-performing rate would also go up as a result of it. We need the central government has also formulated a basket of policies to improve economic resilience and also to support credit loans to strengthen consumption. With more robust consumption, it will also form additional demand for credit loans.
These credit loans would also be passed on to banks and other financial institutions, but that will take time to take place. For the effective demand of the credit market, it remains not optimistic. To sum up, in the past year, basically, we have streamlined these strategic concerns. We have reached consensus, and we are about to take actions. However, the difficulty is beyond our imagination. Last year, when I made the reporting, I said that in three to five years' time, hopefully, when I'm about to retire, maybe this bank would be restored to a healthy growth trajectory. Also, our retail banking and technology DNA, they should be kept within our bloodline. In this process, I think our corporate banking should also play a more predominant role. Corporate business is not just a temporary supplement.
For any banks, in its development growth rate, if they don't have a comprehensive business layout, then it was not. Mortgage loans. With additional account opening, there won't be a payroll service. I think for our bank, we also need to adopt a balanced approach to grow our business. I guess many other analysts also share this concern. Indeed, the transformation for retail banking is difficult. For me, and also for our team, we were in our post-60s. For Ping An Bank, our leadership echelon is relatively old. The first consideration would be the leadership echelon. We need to have younger leaders and management, the post-75. Currently, only Mr. Wu is the post-75. You can make calculations, make about the age of Mr. Wu. I think the first consideration, like I said earlier, is about the echelon.
The second, we need to strengthen the works of the branch. For Shenzhen branch, it accounts for one-fourth of the revenue. It's fair to say that Shenzhen branch is the very foundation. Thirdly, the third consideration would be the characteristics and strengths of each individual. Of course, we have to consider their personal wishes. For Mr. Zhang Zhaohui, he has carried out good at the bottom-out strategy and retained the strategic composure. Now, we need younger and also people with a daring spirit to manage the branch. For Mr. Guang Ji, he has served as the head of many branches, including in Dalian City, Xi'an City, and Guangzhou and Shenzhen City. He has the capabilities to make breakthroughs out of the predicament.
Thanks for Mr. Zhou. I'm Huang Chiy ao from Morgan Stanley. I have two questions regarding NIM. We see that in Q4, the NIM's been reduced significantly on a year-over-year basis. For sure, in Q4, we do have some unfavorable factors, including the LPR interest reduction as well as the stock market. Besides these two factors, are there any other driving factors that lead to the ever-improved NIM? The second question, for the NIM outlook, for the past two years, because of the risk adjustment, the NIM's been reduced a lot. As 2024 adjustment has already been wrapped up, as I can already share with you, the high-risk deposits and the loans have been further reduced. As President Ji mentioned, we were being very decisive of downsizing the high-risk loans and continue to stabilize our sustainable growth. For the whole industry, I think in 2025, there might be some pressure for NIM.
I think the NIM, we took proactive measures in adjusting our business. All those factors would be digested. For Ping An Bank for ourselves, on the debt side, we'll continue to further reduce our debt cost. There are some nice progress being made in 2024, and we do believe we still have further room to further decrease the debt cost to further improve our performance. Where on the asset side, even if the yield of the entire market is being under pressure, let me remind you, as we downsize our high-risk loans, our customer portfolios are being further optimized. For example, we can have some medium-risk product. To some extent, it can make up for that effect. In 2025, even if there's some downward pressure for NIM, the reduction would be much more slowed down.
You also mentioned about the NIM is highly aligned with the risk cost we have. Last year, we had a significant reduction of the NIM, but our risk cost also sees very nice progress. The provisions being reduced by 60% compared with the previous year. In the near future, as all the risks being well managed, with the majority of them being cleared, in the near future, we're going to well improve the asset quality and strengthen our collection efforts and further reduce our cost and risk cost. Besides what has been mentioned, we also continue to improve the optimization for the channel cost and the managerial cost, making sure the ROI of the risk initiatives could be further improved in the near future. Thank you.
Let me just give one more comment regarding NIM. I think NIM is indeed the indicator that can showcase whether any bank can have a good profitability. I was talking about the profit, but not revenue, because you can see that for Chinese banks, NIM accounted for from the very beginning for banks with profit over the intermediate service. At that time, the interest being converted directly into the interest-bearing income. To some extent, it distorted the income statement. To be specifically, you are just leveraging technologies and expertise to cash out on your service, but not many of those stories happen to Chinese banks. In 2024, the situation's been greatly changed because last year, we had a very nice bull market in bond market. We have a nice revenue on that, the same as other players in China. Look into the longer run.
For any banks nowadays, we need to consolidate our fundamentals by improving NIM for any bank. NIM actually decides the profitability of any bank in the near future. For NIM, there are two efforts we need to make. For the past one year, the NIM has been dropped from more than 2 to less than 1.5. In the past, the so-called safe cushion 1.8 for NIM has no longer been the concern of the market. Ultimately, if one day NIM is reaching a very low tipping point, the banks are also going to feel very stressful because banks, we need to replenish our capital. For banks, we do not have any tools for equity financing. We can only issue bonds and continue to improve our profit performance. I think all of you know how the capital leverage looks like for the banking industry.
For Ping An Bank, last year, I have already mentioned high-interest payment cost and high pricing with high NIM. Now, as we continue to roll out new products, especially we have good products being rolled out to the market, but with ever deteriorating market situation, we are not improving the profitability that much. This is indeed very scary. That is the reason last year I have already shared with many of you. We have to be very cautious on the interest payment rate. We used to be ranking number one for the interest payment rate among all the stock banks, especially the retail business and the forex business. While I was taking my place, we found out the interest payment rate was 3.6%, which is very high. Like many of the foreign capitals, when they are in China, they do not observe any savings.
They just deploy their assets in the right allocation and then to make sure they can generate a good alpha from that. I think all in all, what we're trying to do is to make sure we have the long-term deposit being guaranteed. In the morning session, when I was having a meeting with my management team, I told everyone Q1 for 2024 was indeed very, very challenging to us. In the past, we always have a deposit-to-loan ratio of more than 99.9%. I have a huge pressure on the core deposit. Last year in Q1, indeed, we have a huge pressure for the corporate loans. When we have the e-loans, we continue to run for deposit. After one year, you see let me see from the liability perspective.
I always inform my retail banking team, "Let's try to further improve our liability performance." Liability cost needs to be further reduced, never to be the number one among all the peers. In January and February, we were already running in the mid-upper stream, not the number one yet, especially the RMB business. I can share with you some concrete numbers right after this meeting. For the corporate and retail business, actually, our interest payment cost can still be further improved. In other words, we can continue to improve the foreign currency and the RMB business, especially on the interest payment rate. As we have our business here, if there is someone who takes a three-year deposit to come to you, you still need to serve the customer. We do have some branches who have a very low asset pricing, but whose interest payment rate was very high.
I have to well control that by providing limited code to such branch. Regarding the retail, I don't think we'll hit the highest point within this month. During February, especially the Chinese Spring Festival, there might be some disturbance we see for the deposit. For last year, we do see some new accounts being opened. Last year, we have the new corporate accounts, more than 5,000, 6,000, or even 10,000. Still, we need to improve our work on that. Last year, for asset pricing, because of the regulation reason, we have to invest in the real economy. In the past, we had a low risk, low premier. Starting from 2025, you can see that for retail and corporate business, we hope that we can have more product in 2025. Our provision coverage ratio was really high in 2024, the same as MPR formation ratio.
I hope that we will still maintain ourselves with a good performance among all the stock banks. I hope that we will be able to continue to improve our performance. Hope that NIM could be kept above 1.7. I do believe our NIM needs to be stabilized and continue to register good performance compared with other stock banks. The same as the provision coverage, it's more than 250. We still have some safe cushion there. Right before MPR ratio, we should also have good control over the MPR formation ratio. Only by so doing, we're going to have good performance after two to three years. Without the asset allocation, without the interest payment. At the same time downsizing the ground floor for those offices. I do hope that for the banking industry, we hope that we can stabilize the NIM by 1.4.
We hope that at least we're going to have an advantage compared with other peers. But this really takes time and patience. Thank you.
Thanks for President Ji. Indeed, there are some one-time factors last year in Q2 to improve the performance, continue to adjust and improve our performance. Hope in the near future, we can still maintain our NIM performance as the best in class in our industry. Let's welcome the next analyst, please.
Hello. Thank you. My name is Zhang Shuai, coming from CI CC. Just as you mentioned, the retail business is in adjustment, and they also continue to improve the corporate business?
And in 2025, judging by the performance at the beginning of this year, the banking sector is facing increasing pressure with the narrowing of NIM. And we think this year's competition will even be more fierce.
However, we have every confidence that we are going to have a good loan placement based on last year's foundation. We will continue to focus on the three areas. Firstly, to strengthen the mid- and long-term loan. Second, is to strengthen the loans for technology companies and also to give full play to our incumbent advantages in the supply chain products and also the syndicate loans. Additionally, we should also step up the loan placement for medium risks. Also, we have been debating and discussing about the volume and pricing management. Volume alone cannot make the business lucrative. With good pricing alone, without volume, also cannot drive a successful business. We have confidence in 2025 regarding loan placement in a certain area.
We'll continue to strengthen our incumbent advantage while expanding our additional strength in some other areas so that the loan placement business could fill the gap of the difficult retail banking. That would be my response to the question. Thank you.
Let me just add something regarding the corporate placement regarding volume and the risk. I'd like to add some comments regarding risk. We have an increment of RMB 170 billion for corporate loans, just like what my colleague just said, up by 12%. People might be concerned of loans and also volume have increased by close to 9%. Second, in terms of industry segments, most of this increment focused on the infrastructure and also manufacturing sector. The NPL rate has been maintained at a very good level for these businesses.
The rapid growth for the corporate loans cannot do without our strategy last year to strengthen our branches. We have delegated more power to our branches. Risk control. Second, speaking of delegation, the delegation is based on the customer's risk rating. For high-rated customers, the delegation has been expanded. For lower risk-rating customers, it has actually been narrowed down. We have implemented good supervising mechanisms. We have confidence that in 2025, we will be able to continue to grow the corporate business at a higher rate. We are able to stabilize the asset. Next analyst, please.
Thank you for the opportunity. I am from Zhejiang Securities, Liang Fengjie. I have a question regarding retail banking's development. We understand that we need to focus more on medium-risk business. Are there any good products and models to be rolled out at scale? What about the strategic thinking behind the retail loan and also these products?
Okay, let me address this question. For medium-risk products, it plays a decisive role for the future of Ping An Bank. I will take some time to elaborate our risk management and product logic. It's fair to say that this round of retail reform, medium-risk products stand at the core of it. Our product design has abandoned the conventional practice of a single-loan product. We want to return to the customer-centricity product and service system and also to give full play to Ping An Bank's advantage as a comprehensive financial service provider. For our products, even though it's called medium-risk product, the entire product system is designed to serve customers with different risk ratings. Currently, we focus on two areas.
The first area is to be aligned with the national economy agenda to revitalize consumption. Second, for small and micro businesses, we need to adopt a customer-centric approach to meet the full lifecycle demand for different customer segments and also under different scenarios of consumption. For the first system, it is for individual credit loan products meeting the personal consumption needs or small business needs. We call it the Sincerity Loan. Currently, it's under pilot and with good results. Very soon, it will be rolled out. A second product is the Small and Micro Business Loan. Small and micro businesses, as well as the agricultural practitioners. Currently, we are still in the internal testing phase because it's not registered. It's not suitable to disclose the names. These two systems aim to serve the medium-risk customers. The philosophy of these products is quite homogenous.
If we have different concepts involved, that would demonstrate different competitiveness. There are three key factors in our new product. The first one is customer acquisition. In the past, we relied too much on the intermediate service providers. That would be very difficult to control the risk. We need to acquire the customers independently instead of just selling single products. Ping An Bank has a very robust sales capability. We also have a solid customer base for both Ping An Bank and Ping An Group customers. The medium-risk product is an important aspect in our entire service. We need to independently acquire customers. Second, we need to improve the customer segmentation and also to develop a good product portfolio. We will offer our product based on the risk segmentation of customers and also after making comprehensive risk analysis of our customers.
For different customer segments with different risk rating, we will come up with different pricing and also different product systems and different services so as to improve the user stiffness and it is incorporated into the asset portfolio logic. Thanks to Ping An Group's investment in technology, we have also a lot of historical data and also business experience. We need to make the risk management system more centralized and intelligent. Also, we are able to have a more precise risk management approach. The managerial approach would be more efficient. All of these are designed to better mitigate risk. We would monitor the asset portfolio in a not-so-balanced way.
That is why last year, considering the clearing of our high-risk business, in Q4 last year, in terms of revenue, in Q1, in the first half, and also in profitability, I think the first half is better and the second half is lower. For this year's outlook, just like what Mr. Ji has said earlier, we will step up our efforts from several directions. Firstly, for top-line growth, based on our strategic placement, including launching the medium-risk products to the market. Second, at the liability side, this is also one of the focuses for this year. We need to lay a solid foundation for customer base and also lower the liability cost. In terms of fees and expenses, we will continue to adopt the management.
Besides, in terms of risk, in addition to control the risk for newly placed loans for existing MPLs, we would leverage our collection solutions to collect these MPLs. For this year, we will step up the collection effort. With the joint efforts of these several directions.
T hank you for the opportunity. I am Zhang Yi from JP Morgan. My question is about the retail asset quality with the clearing of a high-risk business. The retail asset quality, has it encountered a turning point? Also, what is the trend for MPL for retail asset? What about the outlook in 2025? Another follow-up question regarding retail business with the clearing of a high-risk business. For retail loans in 2025, will it be restored in a positive growth trajectory? Thank you.
Thank you very much. Thanks for your question. First of all, we can see by the end of 2024, the MPR ratio was 1.39, down by four basis points, compared with Q3. Starting from 2024, we continue to downsize the high-risk customers. I would say the stock of the high-risk assets has been reduced significantly. I'm not going to be specific on the numbers, but it's absolutely a significant decline. Where at the same time, last year, the loans we made to the customers are always the best profile and the record in history. I can surely tell you, for retail business, the MPR formation has already hit the peak. It will continue to go down. In 2025, MPR formation will go down further. The asset quality will continue to be improved, so as the credit cost will also go down.
Looking to 2025, we will be firmly continuing with the retail transformation and reform, optimize asset quality and the quality of the customer. Collection is the key action we're going to take. We will take all those possible measures to improve our efficiency and the quality. We're going to give full play to our integrated finance and fintech advantage, building a more intelligent risk model for cost control. In 2025, we have every confidence we're going to deliver a satisfying scorecard for retail assets. The second question is regarding the growth of the retail lending or the loans, whether it could register positive growth in 2025. To give you a simple answer, yes, we can. There are some pressures internally and externally for the retail loans due to the consumer confidence, probably market adjustment. Generally speaking, for stock banks, the loan growth continued to decline.
For Ping An Bank, we proactively adjust our business being downsized. That is the reason our retail loans sound less performing compared with other peers, but it is indeed the result from our initiative. In 2025, we are going to continue to work with our clients, for example, like the mortgage and other loans. We are also going to roll out mid-term risk product. In Q1 last year, we continued to reduce the risks, and you see that the turning point was ready to come.
Please help me regarding the dividends. Last Friday, in your annual report, you mentioned the annual dividends rate continued to go down. What is the reason? Can you elaborate on that? What would be the growth of the dividend rate in the near future? I also would like to ask you whether we have the interim dividend in 2025. Thank you.
Thanks for raising the question. I think I have already briefed on this. Regarding dividends, yes, indeed, we will consider the return to the shareholders. But when we're going to give the dividend, it truly depends on the capital we have. Last year, there was a time difference. In 2025, sorry, the dividend has been made in 2024. But in 2024, we have an interim dividend that has been made in 2024, the year. Last year, the total dividend increased by RMB 30.2 billion compared with 2023, I mean, from the cash flow perspective. That's the reason the current capital proof has been somewhat pressured. By the end of 2024, our Tier 1 capital adequacy rate has been down 0.1% compared with the beginning of last year.
Last year, you can see if the interim and the full year has been combined as one, then we have to think about how fundamentally this business would be. We believe it's still within a reasonable range, especially starting from 2023, compared with other listed companies, compared with their dividend performance. I think the existing dividend rate really works for us because we need to consider our own capital needs and the return to the shareholders. It's a balanced approach. Wherefore, Ping An Bank, from the capital management perspective, in Q4 last year, indeed, our RW continued to go up. Where at the same time, with the tax impact in 2025, we still would like to strike a balance between the return to the investors and the capital needs.
If possible, we will surely continue to keep or even improve the dividend payout ratio because we have to consider return back to the shareholders. Regarding the interim dividend, we're not reaching the term yet. We're going to consider the market condition along with the needs of the shareholders to make appropriate arrangements.
Thank you.
Indeed, I notice dividend is something everyone concerned. It's really not easy for us to make the dividend rate. In short run, we may have some operational pressures. Where for the shareholders or even some of our investors and the fund, we're going to start the roadshows tomorrow. Many of the portfolio managers, I know you are, also have the performance pressure. In this process, we have to respond to the market. Right before I took my office, our dividend payout ratio used to be 12%-30%.
Last year, we grow this number significantly. I always tell my team to do your best. I also hope the market can understand us, especially when we have the short-term operational pressure. If we be a bank without any appearance, without any highlights, then we won't have the future. In this case, we have to strike a balance between the investors and the regulators. At the same time, we also need to consider our short-term and the long-term capital needs. Because ultimately, our capital adequacy needs to rely on our capital pools. More importantly, we have to run good on our operation, maintain or even grow our profit, and continue to ramp up our performance. For sure, you can see that for dividend payout ratio, besides the absolute value, you should also consider what's there inside.
I do hope that you can understand we are trying our best. We continue to improve our service. Where in the longer run, for Ping An Bank, we made the following discussion: 20%-30% dividend payout ratio still needs to be guaranteed. I made a commitment here on this meeting. If I did not honor my commitment, I am going to be criticized by the market or be challenged by the investors. Internally, there is some discussion regarding whether there are any interim dividends. It truly depends on our cash flow, the market performance, actions taken by the peers, along with the policies from the regulators. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Right before the event, we selected some questions from our investors. The most asked question is indeed dividend. We truly understand the concern of the investors. And also, Mr. Qi and Mr. Xiang has already mentioned we're going to continue to stabilize our dividend payout ratio and continue to support our business growth, create more returns to our investors. Next question. The final question from the analyst, please. Madam Xiao, please.
Thank you for giving me the chance to raise a question. I have a question regarding the loan quality for the property market. Is it possible for you to elaborate on the 2024 MPR in property market, especially due to some of the regulations? We do see there are some more regulations being issued recently. How are you going to evaluate the property market in the near future? How it's going to impact your asset quality? Thank you.
Thank you. Let me help to answer the question. First of all, let me talk about the market as a whole. Government has already released many property supportive measures. I do believe the market has already been stopped from dropping, and the inventory has been digested, cash flow for the property developers continued to be improved. There are some nice improvements for the sales, especially in the first two months of 2025. When those key indicators are going to have growth, it truly takes time. All those changes also be built into our asset quality handled by Ping An Bank. In our annual report, we have already mentioned the NPL ratio for property has been 1.73%, improved by 93 basis points compared with last year. We used to have a very low baseline, so the growth is quite limited. Compared with other shareholders, we are still performing very well. You can also take a look at the other 2024. You may use the five articles.
Do you have any highlighted performance you'd like to share with us?
This is a broad topic. Firstly, in our financial statement, there are some relevant content. I think for our colleagues, maybe we can talk about the things that we have done for ease of publicity. This is also a regulation-driven approach. In 2023, during the Central Financial Work Conference, the authority has formulated the five major initiative decisions. Later on, the state administration of the PBOC has also formulated a series of guidelines on what to do and what not to do. Some of these scopes and domains, they are becoming clearer after discussion because out of the forecomings, we have done several things. Firstly, leadership at the headquarter level. For me, I am taking the lead to build the committee to coordinate the top-level design and the policy supporting resources.
Second, for these five areas or the five major initiatives, they will be incorporated into our future strategies. We would be specific about the coordination mechanism, and also, we should provide relevant resources and also with the results assessment. Thirdly, we would strengthen the policy and resource support for that endeavor, including special policies in favor of green finance and also to support technology players and also to support the specialized hidden champions in terms of the pricing and also the resource investment. There should be relevant measures to address these aspects. Additionally, in terms of performance assessment, based on our endowment and our characteristics, we should launch future products. Also, we should develop demo projects and also to make high-quality assessment and publicity of these endeavors. So far, in our financial statement, there are some relevant content.
We have made some achievement, but still, there's a great room for improvement. I think the current loan amount is still inadequate for green finance. At the end of 2024, we have the amount stood at RMB 160 billion, up by 13%. For inclusive finance, we cultivate the ecosystem product to build a scenario based on products and services. This is something that Ping An Bank is good at. By the end of last year, the inclusive finance and also the loans for small and micro customers, we have 780,000 customers with RMB 490 billion loans. We have also over RMB 150 billion for the renaissance of a countryside. We have been developing the pension fund business to increase the supply of pension fund products and also to engage the reform, better adapting the elderly needs. Last year, we have provided the three pension-related products. Altogether, 170 products.
In terms of digital finance, we've been promoting digital management, digital operation to lower operating cost. In 2024, the central committee and state council, they have also made very clear requirements. Also, there are some best practices from the peers. As a result, we would learn from these lessons to step up our efforts in the five major initiatives and assignment. Also, our business-driven, we have a lot of active cases at the front line. You're welcome to visit our bank, and we will also provide more materials for publicity. Next, please.
I'm a journalist from Southern Daily. We understand that technology empowerment has been one of the core competitiveness. Regarding AI application in the banking sector, what are the explorations of Ping An Bank, and how are they?
This is a very hot topic. I believe that you have downloaded DeepSeek. We are also using DeepSeek for some Q&A. Indeed, artificial intelligence in particular, the launch of, as you can see from our work result, we attach great importance to that. Second, it's, as you said, for Ping An Bank, we adhere to the principle of technology leading. Over the technology. Second, we need to couple these models with our existing business operation. That is absolutely critical. The vertical application of artificial intelligence is not as simple as the application of generic models. We are accelerating the pace of deploying AI capabilities for the bank. We have concentrated and mobilized many resources. Also, we are in discussion about the potential application. Policy. Internally, we would make plans and arrangements. Currently, we have 138 such potential projects. In order to implement them effectively, it will have to go one by one.
Out of the 138 projects, they are focusing on three directions because AI is only a means to the end. We need to embrace cost initiatives and also to drive efficiency, help our frontline staff to do marketing and sales. We aim to better serve our customers so that our customers could have a better experience. Besides, AI application is not a fashionable thing for us to pursue. The application of AI technology must be leveraged to serve our operation with tangible and visible results. We should pay special attention to AI's application in the banking sector. We need to be mindful of data security, confidentiality requirements, and also compliance. I think in the future, we would accelerate the progress of the application. Thank you very much for your continuous attention.
Thank you.
I could add something. This is a very hot topic, even fashionable product topic. From the earliest AI to the large modeling, the iteration speed is becoming higher and higher. Now we have the open-sourced large model, and also we have DeepSeek. Sometimes people also use Kimi and Doubao and Manus, etc. For us, DeepSeek is more professional in some concept, and our approach, our investment, and our application of technology are visible to all. I used to ask a question on Doubao or DeepSeek. Can you tell me what is the technology strength of Ping An Bank? Doubao would reply, "At least give me a list of items." Firstly, you need to accept it. Second, to embrace it, to learn from it, to deploy it, and eventually to use it.
I believe in this process, when I was talking with my teammates, I always tell them, "Don't rush to use. Otherwise, you're going to waste the resources. You're not doing innovation for innovation purpose. Otherwise, you're going to fail in the near future." You have to think about what you can refer to and what you need to build by yourself, and there are anything you can get support from. We also did some small-scale pilot program within Ping An Bank. For example, we have the agent, and the agent would be empowered by the large language model by having a personal assistant interview report, which contains more comprehensive information than human note-taking. At the same time, internally, we also have the customer portfolio, the same as our wealth manager case archiving. All those could be empowered by artificial intelligence.
We combine all the data, and the AI has the logic thinking. I think large language model is unlike the search engine. A big highlight of large language model is that it has the ability to think, which the trend large language model is reasoning and inference capacity would be much higher than ordinary people. For banks, we are running our business on data and the gap between the information. Imagine if one day, many of you sitting here as analysts, when you do the asset allocation, you don't approach your account manager anymore. You may just approach someone empowered by AI who's going to provide you the solution even better than the junior financial managers. In the near future, I urge my team to have a sense of the crisis. Many of their jobs might be replaced by large language model in the near future.
Ultimately, large language models are there to serve the human society because we have to consider the ethical issues. Bank is a very special industry. It's being stringently supervised and managed. We have to consider compliance when we are using large language model. For example, when we take a look at DeepSeek, DeepSeek, the data has been distilled. It's the distillation data based upon other models. Whether they have the same elements in the data, in the data training, sometimes it's going to generate illusion. Whether the illusion will impact us, we need to think about that with ethical critical thinking. I do hope that the iteration of artificial intelligence can help to free us from the overworkload. We also need to consider supervision, data compliance.
When you feed the data to a large language model, you have to think about whether the data is already in the open-source network. When we have the localized deployment of the large language model in our vertical, we have to process the data in line with compliance. We need to provide the training. Ultimately, we're going to have something positive from those large language models. Something we can't predict is how advanced large language models would be in 6 or 12 months. Let's just keep a positive attitude. For me, for someone in our position, you need to at least know what is a large language model, how it can be used to serve our bank, how it can help to improve the customer experience, or how it can help you to improve efficiency in the intensified competition.
I surely believe in the next one to two decades. This is a forward-looking statement from me. As you are friends from the media, indeed, within Ping An team, we do have a large task force with a dedicated committee and the separate budget for the large language model. I do hope that in the near future, for Ping An Group and Ping An Bank, we do take the first-mover advantage.
Thank you. Yes, AI is very important. Design means nothing. You need to have good execution. Ping An is a company with technology genes. Execution means the. From the Security Times. I know that the State Council Information Office is having a press conference of boosting the consumption. I'd like to ask you whether this initiative is going to impact your business, especially for Ping An Bank. I see that last year, your retail loan allocations have been reducing. Whether the consumption boost program from the State Council would help to recover your business.
Thank you very much. Thanks for just spending your time with us. I know you are supposed to be there for the State Council meeting.
Yes, indeed. Yesterday, we already noticed the consumption boost program. When I saw that article, I forwarded it to our Ping An Bank WeChat group. In the morning session, I urged my teammates again, "Please keep an eye on this program or invest in initiative because it's going to bring facilitating measures." For example, increase the revenues with more measures to support the credit loans to improve the consumptions. For sure, in that policy, it mentioned about the consumptions, threshold, as well as a bunch of the measures for different industries.
There are many interpretations over this program or initiative, but at least as a bank, I do believe this initiative helped to further tell the CBC committee, "Notice the sense of the urgence and significance of continuing to improve the consumptions in China." Once this initiative has been executed, it's going to be a combine of the policies which will have a positive impact over the society as a whole. For Ping An Bank, we are a retail bank. Generally speaking, in the process, we need to find the best anchor point to help to make sure we have these initiatives being interwoven into our daily practice. Turning this initiative into action is the key. I do believe we need to well interpret the policy and also be able to identify our own execution policy.
Thirdly, you need to keep an eye and have the follow-up on the policy execution. More importantly, you should also notice what's been done by other banks and peers and learn from other peers. Internally speaking, I think if we continue to improve the retail credit loans, especially in the initiative, it actually further expanded the retail credit loan application with a higher degree of the freedoms being given. For any of the financial products, there are three changes, including the term, the interest rate, as well as a quota. For example, internet-based loans. I noticed the quota has been improved to RMB 300,000. Consumption loans have been improved to RMB 500,000 with quota, and the term has been extended to seven years. All will be included into this initiative. In other words, this initiative has a wider application range, covering more industries with every extended solutions and criteria.
For Ping An, we do have advantage in credit card and the auto finance, as well as the credit loans for individuals, which is truly a great feat with some of the verticals mentioned in this initiative. What we're trying to do is to play with our expertise, making sure with our existing product, we adjust the quota, as well as the term and the risk tolerance, and continue to roll out the new product in the new categories. At the same time, in consumption, I do believe there are some opportunities for the corporate business. For example, like the travel, cultural industries, and the smart business, as well as community service, providing mid and long-term capital service. Another highlight is NEV and intelligent home appliance. I do believe those all indeed help to generate more opportunities for the corporate business.
The third one is intelligent customer service. Because of the State Council consumption initiative, it actually considered to value and to challenge the service capacity of the financial institutions. In this process, Ping An Bank needs to play our trump card for the online and offline integrated finance and our call center, our auto insurance, and credit loans, credit cards. We are relying on the 200 million customers from Ping An Group, and I do believe we're going to make a difference. More importantly, we should also consider the risk control system upgrading, as we are in phase of the new policy. We have to build the dynamic credit evaluation system. This is an original statement from the initiative. We need to continue to reduce the cost for inclusive finance and also providing accessible support to SMEs and the citizens.
Because the initiative has been just rolled out yesterday, I read it and I tried to interpret it as a financial practitioner. We hope that we can execute this initiative and also continue to have the follow-up on its effectiveness. That is my own interpretation over this initiative. Surely, I also believe this initiative will also bring intensified competition within the financial industry. For Ping An Bank, we may face more competition pressures or even an ever-narrowed need. In this compared to the gains, we need to improve our social responsibility, continue to help to develop a good consumption for the society. When those consumers, when they reach a certain stage, there would also be high-quality customers to Ping An Bank. At least I think we need to have a new perspective and starting to implement the initiative from details.
Thank you. Thanks for President Ji. Let's welcome another friend from the media. Please, the gentleman in the middle.
Thank you. I come from China Security. I have a question to you regarding your wealth management business. Last year, in 2024, what would be the priority for your wealth management business? Looking to 2025, are there any measures you're going to have in place?
Thank you. For the wealth management business, it is always a very important part of our retail business. In the year of 2024, the wealth management business saw a very steady growth. No matter from the wealth management customer account and the account for private wealth management clients, they all registered a stable yet rapid growth. Also for the AUM growth, it also has a very steady performance. A few measures have been taken last year. First of all, we still have the customer demand-centric approach.
In 2024, in the wealth management market, we witnessed many changes, including the stock market, the bond market, and also the financial management and insurance industry continued to experience changes. Last year, we adapted ourselves to all those market changes. We have already established a multi-strategy, multi-term product to enrich our product on the shelf. Last year, we also continued to develop the pension product. I mean, more than 100 pension products. We continue to improve the diversities of our product portfolio and truly take care of our medical care, pension, and also culture, sports, and charity work. We are working hard in establishing a set of the interest system with Ping An characteristics. For the wealth management clients, privilege and the interest system means a lot to them. This can actually showcase our support and service to the wealth customer.
More importantly, we also continue to improve our management capacity. For example, like our bank insurance team. In the past, we are building a wealth management team that knows how to sell the insurance product. Our bank insurance team continued to further strengthen their capacity.
They should not only be able to sell insurance, but also other wealth management products. Additionally, for other PPMs, and also our agents should be able to sell both insurance and other wealth management products. This is a very important capability. Fourthly, we have optimized the companionship service for our customer. Last year, we have launched some featured products. In the Greater Bay Area, we have launched the cross-border products. One of our products is targeting specific segments and also a community, including for the senior management of firms. These are the work that we have done last year.
However, the market landscape has a lot of changes. For the wealth management team, the most important thing is to add additional value for the customers. At the right timing, the team should be able to launch featured products. Overall, the return for a deposit remains low. For wealth management, for bank assurance, I think we need to step up the efforts in these areas. For the featured products targeting the Greater Bay Area and also for the top management of the companies, these products should be continuously offered and strengthened so that the customer could feel that our special service systems serve to improve the branding of Ping An Bank. Besides, this year, with the changes in the equity market, I mean the stock market, the company should seize the window of opportunity to make adjustments accordingly. Thank you.
In the interest of time, we'll allow for one last question from the press. Please.
I have a question to Ping An Bank regarding the 2024 corporate business achievement and also the focus in the future.
Thank you for the question. In 2024, our corporate business, the overall growth momentum was quite good, be it scale and also the asset quality. Specifically, last year, we have adopted a differentiated operational strategy and improved the contribution for corporate business and filled the gaps for retail business. Additionally, we've been cultivating our customer and also industry and product. We've been investing resources in a very precise way to optimize the product structure, improve the product innovation capabilities so as to drive the high-quality growth for corporate business. Second, we have deepened the comprehensive finance with the additional services from the group.
We have leveraged the group's resources to offer comprehensive connectivity with the corporate clients so that we are able to empower our corporate clients to improve the market competitiveness and also to seek a greater growth momentum. As to the achievement in 2024, the results have been released in our announcement. The quality of these corporate businesses is quite good, including the asset quality. Firstly, we have reached 853,000 customers for our corporate customers by 13%, while the strategic customers, the loans, have reached RMB 308 billion by 21.1%. We have 26,573 technology customers by 11.8%. For inclusive finance for small and micro businesses, the total loan has reached RMB 495.7 billion with significant growth. Another achievement would be the cultivation in the industry. We have covered infrastructure and also the automotive industry. We have placed RMB 442.4 billion loans in these areas by 35.4%.
We have CNY 215.9 billion loans for new energy, up by 41.9%. For supply chain, we have reached CNY 15.9 billion, up by 19.9%. For the bill discount financing customer, we have reached 26,330 customers, and we have achieved a 44% growth for the cross-border trade loans.
In the future, what will be the focus and the future directives?
Firstly, just like I mentioned earlier, we would continue to focus on the five major initiatives to place loans for the five key industries. Second, we would strengthen the customer segmentation, in particular for strategic customers, providing integrity services. For inclusive finance, we would enrich the product offerings. We have been undertaking some testing and validation. I believe that this year, there will be a big increment for inclusive finance placement.
We will spare no efforts to support technology enterprises with policy and ecosystem support to be aligned with the national agenda to support the entrepreneurship and innovation of the technology firms. Additionally, we will continue to embrace digitalization and technological empowerment to improve the level of intelligence for supply chain and cross-border finance, among others, to build a differentiated and comprehensive product and service systems. I believe that the digitalization and technology empowerment are crucial for cross-border financing and trade financing. Fourthly, we will strengthen the level of support to the strategic and key domains, including advanced manufacturing and green finance, and also the renaissance of the rural areas. We think that in 2025, the corporate business will usher in a new growth chapter. Thank you.
Thank you very much. So far, we have over 188,000 participants from different channels. That is the end for the Q&A session. Even though the Q&A session only lasted for one hour and several minutes, answering these questions requires very pragmatic work for the management. We will continue to actively respond to any queries and also to improve the return and dividend for our shareholders and stakeholders. We also implore the investors and analysts, as well as friends from the press, to provide your suggestions. We will strive to improve the operational results.
Thank you. That is the end of today's annual results announcement. See you next time.